The Media in the US Is Much Better Than in Other Nations - But Still Not Good Enough

If you are a reporter in some countries, you are a marked man and the government is watching you, and one slip up and you are history, you disappear, or are thrown in jail. In the United States we have freedom of the press thankfully, and although we export our products, know-how, and services all over the world, don't expect us to be able to export that as a "new found freedom" to ports afar. In fact, many nations are busy tightening down the reins on the media, and not just newspapers and TV either. Okay so, let's discuss this for a moment shall we?

Not long ago, an acquaintance from Australia said to me; "Modern media today such as news channels do not perform a truly non biased account of the events they broadcast on."

True, but we should expect them too considering how they are paid. If a media company gets money from, oh let's say the Obama Campaign for president, then they are going to run more favorable news content when his name is mentioned, and really this happens at all levels of government, no surprise there, local newspapers cater to those who spend the most on ads too, generally. I find the Murdoch scandal in the UK interesting with the cell-phone spying as well.

It's too bad that people believe everything they view in the media, my acquaintance notes that part of the challenge is the folks are just not educated as to how the media really works, true enough I say; yes, especially kids, and the lower IQ folks just take it all in as gospel, not that gospel is any better or reality based in and of itself. For instance, as my acquaintance correctly notes; "The child grows up looking at the television for both learning and entertainment, the TV becomes effectively a third parent and in doing so we lose the battle for the child's mind."

Right and a child's mind may not recognize the difference between advertising and reality, and to my acquaintance's comments, indeed, he's right; this is an empirically proven fact, he is correct. Do we need to teach our children better about these realities, it seems we do.

As a capitalist, I do not wish to diminish the media, it's a business, and that's fine, still a little education could go a long way. Now then if we'd teach children to think and question authority we'd be there, but we teach them to submit to authority instead, perhaps as a way to ensure they grow up and do not become trouble makers to the system or status quo.

Of course in doing so, eventually some of them will wake up and be VERY Pissed-Off for being lied too, which is probably why we have Hacker Groups, Disruptors, and even some mild-version terrorists. For the "powers that be" it's a challenge of getting the mix right, and it's a trade off.

If we teach kids early on of all the deception in our society, we are indeed, teaching them to deceive, and a lack of integrity also can bring down a society or prevent it from giving future generations a fair deal. We are also teaching them to be distrustful as well. Perhaps, we ought to be teaching the "philosophical" aspect, rather than the tactics.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

View the original article here

Sound and Fury, Media, Sports, and Distraction of the Mindless Masses

Some might love to use social networks, and who can blame them as they are designed for people to communicate in a way that makes them feel good about themselves. In China, the government wants to limit the time spent on social networks, as they want a productive and obedient society. That makes sense, 1.3 Billion people, with an unbalanced percentage of males, is quite a handful. In the US we see a dummying down of our populations - sure TV, social networks, and all the time wasted is not doing us any good. Okay so let's talk.

Not long ago, I was having this discussion with an acquaintance. Should we outlaw the use of social networks and limit people's TV time? Well, I believe we should allow people their pursuit of happiness, I don't want to limit their choices on how they spend their time, I don't want the heavy hand of government telling me what I must do either you see. My acquaintance noted;

"I agree with what you're saying about people's personal choices and decisions to make their lives happier. I understand that the most basic level people only want to be happy, the issue we run into is what makes one person happy does not serve everyone in the same way. Distraction is a tool in controlling the masses. Originally the distraction was religion over the years as science progressed leaders have found that mass media can replace religion in this area."

It seems the Aztecs, Romans, and other cultures used sports - fighting to the death. Some cultures had linked it to "penalties" for going against the rule of law, generally unilaterally made by some psychotic ruler, I use "psychotic" here as an extreme form of "psychopathic-psychotic" Machiavelli type.

Both my acquaintance and I did agree that we ought to enlighten and get our kids to understand how the media is affecting their minds, and thus, help them make reason of it all and then decide. That would be a great idea, and we might start by having them read up on Media Philosophers like; Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the famous Canadian media philosopher.

Right now, coincidentally, I am reading OBD - Obsessive Brand Disorder and have several books on the media worthy of reading. Often I equate the Media to being the Fourth Branch of Government in the US, as our government is set up with a Judicial, Legislative, and Executive Branch, but the Media controls all three it seems, as the government caters to the wishes of the people, which changes on a whim due to the media which owns the minds of the masses now. "He who controls the media, controls the minds of the masses," as someone once said. So, let's all please consider all this.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

View the original article here

News Media Trends for 2012

Well, they say election years are great years for the news media, and since 2012 is an election year, and there looks to be a heated race between the GOP and President Obama's reelection committee, you can be sure that lots of dollars will be flowing into the news media. Indeed it couldn't come at a better time, or at a more crucial time as media outlets have been laying off, and watching their viewership and readership dwindle.

As you probably know most of the reason for this has to do with online social networks and the amount of time people are spending online. Some of the top media outlet companies are now putting their news online and making available for mobile users with smart phones, iPads, and tablets to be viewed. Luckily, they are also harnessing their advertisers and taking them on the road as well, this gives a reprieve to a severely downtrodden news media industry.

One interesting new trend that I am watching this year is the concept of news articles being put into collections that can be downloaded by subscribers for viewing on their e-reader personal tech devices. In other words the New York Times for instance might take all the articles on Afghanistan and put them together in a collection or e-book and sell them for a $1.99 let's say, and you will have essentially an e-book which is nothing more than all the articles on that particular topic. Since the content has already been created previously, it's an excellent new income stream.

Another interesting new trend that I find fascinating is the outsourcing of new staff to places like India. Someone in the newsroom here the United States will collect all the e-mail addresses, and phone numbers for various news article sources, and then have someone in India contact these individuals collecting digital pictures as well, and doing all the work in India over the Internet and sending it back to the news outlet for publication or uploading on their websites. I find that completely fascinating, and we will see that trend continue as local news companies do this, and as larger news companies are also forced to do it to save costs and compete.

In 2012 we will see more and more stories that have been created from compiling facts in online news. We will also see the use of Social Media data extraction determining which stories to run, allowing newsrooms and editors to determine the placement of stories based on surveying the interests of the public online. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and consider how the media will change in 2012, because changes are afoot.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Innovation in America. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

View the original article here

Regulatory Challenges and the Media

There is definitely a culture clash in the world, and I'm not talking about the Western World and the Middle East, rather I'm talking about in the media such as television, radio, and newspapers and the new paradigm of social media, the Internet, and all the combination variations in between. Not only that, we also note that there have been lots of regulatory changes propping up the old, and preventing the new from making headway. Let's go ahead and talk about this for a moment if we shall.

You see, the Internet is rising so quickly along with e-commerce, and social networks that the media can't keep up. In fact the old media is trying to find new ways to use social networks and the Internet to blend the content so they don't lose the next generation of readers, and can keep from losing current subscribers who are migrating to electronic formats for their intake of news. Consider if you will all the apps on the iPad for all the major news outlets, and all of the industry association trade journals.

The old media is also very upset because it is being plagiarized at such a high rate that as soon as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or any other publication puts out an article, that article is copied, or parts of it are copied and syndicated across the Internet within minutes, and redistributed to the whole world. Those that are consolidators or syndicators of news often make quite a bit of money off their advertising on their websites, but the old media still has to pay to create the content. Obviously it's easy to make a lot of money grabbing other company's work when all there is; is revenue, and someone else is generating all of the articles, videos, and news.

You can see how upsetting this is - especially considering that the new media is competing with the old media, and the old media is paying for all the content that the new media is stealing. Because of this we are noticing new regulatory challenges in the online venues. This culture clash, of the new versus the old will continue. It appears that everyone in the new media believes that all the information should be free. But the old media is trying to stand on the integrity of the reporting, often flying reporters halfway around the world doing stories in places off the beaten path.

If they are not paying for that content, they can no longer send the actual reporter there to collect the information first hand. Further if they collect the information through social media, tweets, and cell phone videos of people who are actually there, then obviously the news will be jaded, and favoring the opinions of those taking the pictures. This might seem like an okay thing, because we are getting information in real time, but we aren't necessarily getting nonbiased news.

Government regulations to try to protect the old media aren't working, attempts to shut off ISPs of those who allow the posting of plagiarized information isn't going to fly with Internet users, and it's a bad idea anyway. Nevertheless, you can expect these controversies to continue throughout 2012 and more regulations to come. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Internet Issues. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

View the original article here

Beware of the Media, It Will Melt Your Mind and Make You Stupid He Said

All it is, is mass brainwashing - dummying down society, he told me. Then he explained last year how he went down to the local newsstand right after the Giant Earthquake and Japanese Tsunami and what was on the cover? One headline about the mega-disaster and several stories about such things as "some football star having an affair with a prostitute and this is not an isolated incident it happens every day worldwide."

Sure enough and we all know he's right, we all observe the same thing really. Later he equated this to be one of the reasons there is very little creativity going on in the world, and that "the majority of people seem to be happy with being told what's good for them and when it's good for them by people they've never met and have never heard before. It's like watching a flock of sheep being herded by sheepdog, as long as it doesn't affect their television they're quite happy to accept anything they're told."

Again, he's right, and we all know this, and then he told me that he was much happier living in his flat in Europe alone, without having to deal with such a screwed up world. Okay so, if you feel the same way, which I am certain many of us do from time to time, here is what I told him:

Okay so, you are happy, you win, others are happy with they are doing, so they win also. If we take away what they perceive to make them happy, and censor what they can view in the media, that is really; shame on us. Now then, I'm not saying they are not to blame, or shouldn't exercise responsibility in what they watch or take in, in fact, shame on them also. But humans just want to be happy, they tend to do the things that make them happy, often above what's good for them. If we dictate what is good for everyone, they will end up living sterile lives, and unfulfilled.

In many regards many of the rules, regulations, and onerous dictates imposed in our society is causing depression amongst the masses. I don't find that to be good, as it leads to things like depression medicines, drug use, alcohol abuse, and all sorts of other bizarre behavior and activities. None of which is any good. The biggest challenge with making rules, or deciding what is good for other people, even if you have the greatest intentions, is you are doing nothing more than paving the road to hell, and causing them to have unfulfilled and unhappy lives.

You are happy, you win, may be they are happy doing what they are doing, even if that road leads basically to know where. But then again in the end no one has ever escaped Earth alive, and everyone's life experience appears to end at the time of their departing this reality as fully functional entity. So they may as well be happy while they're here, and who are we to say what should make them happy? You see that issue?

Maybe, if people want to stop thinking, let them, as long as they don't tell us intellectual people how to live our lives or force that nonsense on us, we should be happy they are happy, or at least believe they are happy in this case. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Future Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

View the original article here

Media Ethics: Inside Out

I was a young reporter eager to break the story. The tip came into my work email and I was ready.

A man that lived in an apartment complex wrote to me that for months he had seen several sheriff's office deputies sitting in the back parking lot of a church in his neighborhood. The man wrote that as many as ten deputies, sometimes more, would be outside of their patrol cars talking and drinking coffee for two hours plus, daily. What were they doing and why? Certainly his tax dollars could be put to better use by having these deputies out on the street. Sounds like a great story, right? It was, but for all the wrong reasons.

After pitching the story to my News Director, I was out the door with a small camera and an unmarked SUV with tinted windows. I visited the neighborhood three times over the course of a couple weeks. I setup the camera on a tripod in the back of the SUV. Over the course of two weeks I shot hours of video of exactly what our tipster said we'd find. I logged each patrol car I saw, and also the amount of time each deputy spent there.

Once we had the tipster's side of the story it was time to call the sheriff's office to find out what these deputies were up to.

The sheriff's office told me deputies would gather behind the church to get their daily reports signed off on by the shift supervisor. It's a lengthy process at times where the supervisor checks reports for accuracy and for the needed legal documentation. The location where deputies were meeting was picked because it was in the center of the district and the most viable spot for deputies with take home cruisers.

When I took all the information I had gathered to my news director, the story was a wash. Any coverage we gave the story wouldn't have been fair because the deputies weren't doing what we were told by our tipster. I filed the video and reporter notes in my bottom desk door and moved on.

A couple months later, I couldn't help but notice a sweeps story promotion for a competing station in the market. If you aren't familiar with sweeps, it's a ratings period for broadcast media where Nielsen meters homes and determines a newscasts viewership. Sweeps (February/May/July/November) is important because the more viewers a station gets, the more advertising dollars it can ask for.

The tease of the headline was tantalizing.... "Deputies caught slacking on the job. Tonight at 11."

You can imagine my shock and surprise when I looked and saw video of the same deputies, behind the same church that I had staked out.

The story later that night was everything you'd expect from a hard-hitting investigation. Gritty undercover video. A dramatic reporter voice track that itself called the deputies actions into question. The camera stormed the deputies in the parking lot and the reporter shouted out questions in a way that made the deputies guilty of something before they even had the opportunity to answer.

Because the sheriff's office knew we had looked into the story months prior and didn't run with it, I couldn't help myself but call the next day. Needless to say no one was happy. In fact, my contact with the sheriff's office was so displeased she wanted the story covered and was willing to give us inside details into the reasons the deputies gathered in the church parking lot.

As I approached my News Director a second time concerning the story, I got the green light.

One week later, our story hit the air. It detailed the circumstances that put deputies in the church parking lot everyday. Communication equipment wasn't advanced enough for deputies at the time to file their reports wirelessly. That led to a timely process of shift commanders county-wide having to sit and wait for deputies to bring them reports to be signed off on. In most cases, deputies would be off-the-clock behind the church just to get their reports completed so they could go home for the day. The sheriff's office gave us exclusive access and details into a new plan by the county to install laptops and wireless equipment in all of its cruisers to avoid situations like we saw at the church. The cost was rather dramatic which itself generated another story months later.

The same issue, two totally different stories!

This real-life example of media ethics is a great illustration of how stories can be morphed by the media outlet doing the story-telling. In the first example of the competing station the details were turned inside out, selectively picked to make the story more sensationalistic and to make the station appear more "hard-hitting" in the work it was doing for its viewers. Our story, on the other hand, got to the source of the problem. Although our coverage wasn't sensationalistic, it gave viewers an insightful and beneficial look into what the real problem was.

So what can you do as a viewer to better determine ethics in the news you get? For starters, don't buy into the hype. It is easy to identify a sensationalized story so next time one grabs your attention ask the tough questions when you watch, read or listen. Did this media outlet get both sides of the story? Could there be a deeper and different problem than the one the story focused on? Finally, does the story present any solutions from people interviewed? If you can't find these elements in the news that got your attention, chances are you aren't getting the whole story.

Because we are flooded with various media today, we all are exposed and impacted by ethics in media. It is up to us, the audience, to determine which media will get our attention and which gets discarded. The more people act as "watchdogs" of the kind of media they pay attention to, the quicker irresponsible journalists can be held to task.

Jason Lanning is a broadcast journalist from Tampa, FL and operates his own website addressing media ethics and his experience with irresponsible media.

Published articles and Jason's website not sponsored by or affiliated with any media organizations.

View the original article here